As the embers of 2012 begin to fizzle out, it is always a poignant time to dust down one's preferred sound bites from the year that was.

My personal favourite is reserved for the ongoing chairman of the Premier League Sir Dave Richards, an intrepid football explorer of Scott-like proportions, who gloriously decided to promote the need for a few pints of confidence when he washed up in liquor-shy Qatar back in March.

The diminutive but oil rich host nation of the 2022 World Cup finals is a spot where alcohol, in public at least, is about as welcome as your average Chelsea fan in Leeds. Richards did not see the need for such prohibition in the small Muslim state.

"In our country and in Germany, we have a culture," said an emboldened Richards, who also unintentionally stumbled into a water fountain during his magnificently outspoken mission to the desert.

“We call it, 'We would like to go for a pint', and that pint is a pint of beer. It is our culture as much as your culture [in Qatar] is not drinking. There has to be a happy medium."

Despite his apparent penchant for a tumbler or two of Bishops Finger, Richards would perhaps give two fingers to hotspots like the Alexandra Palace in London, a venue where the happy medium seems to be breached on a nightly basis during the three-week booze-a-thon that is the PDC World Darts Championship.

This Mecca to mindless elbow bending is all endorsed by live television. There is a darker side to what is farcically described as the best Christmas Party in town. It is also a reminder of this country’s depressing booze culture.

Some will say that darts has always had a drink problem, but the players dispensed with lager, vodka and fags on stage long ago as the need to be viewed as public role models and promote healthier living became glaringly obvious.

The days of the 1970s and 1980s when pint-laden men like Eric Bristow and Jocky Wilson were lost in the thick fug of cigarette smoke almost seems like an era from folklore.

The gone but not forgotten Geordie commentator Sid Waddell, whose voice is already desperately missed at this year’s tournament, once highlighted big Cliff Lazarenko’s need for a refreshment during a match.

"Cliff is off and looking for something yellow in a tall glass — and I don't mean daffodils,” said the loquacious Sid. Let us not forget that Scotland’s Jocky Wilson died a two-time world champion, but is as recalled as much for his alcoholism after checking out earlier this year.

During the World Championship semi-final in 1984, Dave Whitcombe outlasted Wilson in an epic battle, but failed to track down his opponent for the handshake after sinking the winning double. An inebriated Jocky had fallen off the stage.

Apart from the staggering Aussie Tony Fleet struggling to hold his darts during an excruciating loss to Martin Adams at the BDO version of the World Championship in 2010 when he had one over the eight beforehand, such drunken antics are now reserved for the fans.

“Stand up if you love the darts,” is a paean to the half-pissed. Without sounding prudish, there is something sad about watching some of the booze hounds who turn up to watch darts dressed in various costumes. The aim is obviously to get spotted on television stewed and dishevelled.

Some of the fans turned up in toga garb last night, almost straight out of National Lampoon’s Animal House, but Cleopatra had left the building long before Simon Whitlock was overcoming Haruki Muramatsu in the first round. Whitlock was losing finalist to Phil Taylor in 2010, but who can be bothered watching darts when you are all fuzzy.

Some of the drunkards who attend need to show a bit more respect to the tungsten tossers. A bloke sporting a beard had to be removed from the crowd at a tournament in Minehead last week when hundreds of fans began chanting Jesus at him during a Taylor match. He was deemed to be a distraction to the players.

“It was distressing. I was emotionally distraught. The crowd were bullying me and picking on me,” said the fan, who looked more like Justin Lee Collins.

There is something not right somewhere when characters can embrace such conduct when the finest player to throw a dart and winner of 15 world titles is playing.

Watching darts sober on TV enables a viewer to gain an edge of tension that is missing when lubricated. The final between between Raymond van Barneveld and Taylor in 2007 that went down to the final leg was best enjoyed with a cup of tea.

Zara Phillips stuck her snout in the darts trough a year ago, but then it is trendy for the idle rich to find out what this is all about. The difference with her is she has other interests away from the bottle and can return to her horses.

It is nonsense to suggest that all is good in darts when it is condoning a health problem of epidemic proportions. We live in moments of hardship for many, times when there is an overwhelming temptation to turn to grog because it is an easy option.

England and Wales last year averaged one million alcohol-related violent crimes and over one million alcohol-induced hospital admissions. That is without considering the long-term mental issues, liver damage and rising obesity rates among other ills that support anti-social behaviour.

Where there is a lot of drink, there is not a lot of happiness. Getting tanked up does not equate to being full of fun. Darts may be benefiting from a boom in popularity, but it is also cashing in from a parish of punters who remain more interested in doubles than double tops.

Half the crowd at the darts do not know if it is New Year or New York. While world darts continues to rage, the Ally Pally crowd has sadly become a very visible monument to the greater British booze problem.

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Introduction

Tungsten has high electrical and thermal conductivity, and low vapor pressure at high temperature. It has high meting point compared to all other metallic materials. It is also considered as a good element for high vacuum technology, furnace construction, glass seals, and dimensional stability. It has an ability to absorb radioactive radiation because it has high density. The following datasheet gives an overview of tungsten.

Physical Properties

The physical properties of tungsten are displayed in the following table.
Properties                Metric                      Imperial
Density                   19.27 g/cm³              0.70 lb/in³
Melting point            3410°C                    6170°F

Mechanical Properties
The mechanical properties of tungsten are outlined in the following table.
Properties                     Metric             Imperial
Tensile strength            1725 MPa       250 ksi
Elastic modulus            400 GPa         58000 ksi
Hardness                     300                 300

Fabrication and Heat Treatment

Forming
Before forming, tungsten should be preheated at 675°C (1247°F).

Applications
Tungsten is used in different kinds of furnace and lighting applications due to its high melting temperature. The thermal expansion coefficient value of tungsten is almost same as that of silicon, thus using the tungsten in brazed mounts for silicon diode chips.

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The Light Emitting Diode celebrated its 50th anniversary this year. It's easy to forget LEDs have been around for so long, especially as they've become ubiquitous as cheap, energy-efficient sources of light in comparatively recent times.

Take those Christmas lights, for example. LEDs have almost completely replaced the tungsten bulbs we gazed at as children, and for good reason - they're up to 90 per cent more efficient, don't get dangerously hot on our tinder-flammable Christmas trees, don't need to be troublesomely filled with inert gas, and can last for up to 100,000 hours each.

The LED has become one of the most important electronic components in modern technology. The market for general lighting by LEDs is expected to be worth $19.5bn this year and reach $31.4bn by 2017.

General lighting accounts for just 35 per cent of the total LED market, though, with mobile devices - such as smart phones and tabs - accounting for 30 per cent.

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Tis the season...for wedding engagements. More than a third of engagements take place between Thanksgiving and New Year's, according to WeddingWire -- so many, in fact, that it's come to be known as "engagement season."

Which means that wedding planning kicks off in earnest in the new year -- followed closely by sticker shock at the price of gold and platinum wedding bands. As the cost of precious metals continues to rise, it comes as no surprise that more and more grooms are forgoing those traditional choices and opting for more adventuresome -- and less costly -- materials, such as tungsten carbide and palladium.

Grooms spent an average of $491 for their wedding bands in 2011, almost a 23 percent drop from the $637 average in 2009, according to wedding-planning website The Knot. That's in part because fewer are buying gold: 39 percent of grooms purchased white gold bands in 2009, versus 34 percent in 2011.

Ruth Batson, CEO of the American Gem Society, chalks up the popularity of alternative materials to style as well as economics. "Alternative materials like titanium, ceramic, tungsten are top trends right now, because of the hardness factor and also for ease of care. While cost may be a factor for some, overall design and how the ring looks and holds up tend to be a priority."

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